Flourishing programs in 80+ disciplines. A vibrant Christian mission. $50 million
in new campus construction. A 2014 Division III national championship. 95% placement
within 6 months of graduation. There’s never been a better time to consider Hope College.

As a member of the MIAA and NCAA Division III associations, Hope College sponsors
22 varsity sports for men and women. The college is home to the 2014 NCAA Division
III National Championship women’s volleyball team.

Chucho Valdés: Irakere 40 to Perform on Nov. 7

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Chucho Valdés: Irakere 40 will perform a concert at Hope College on Saturday, Nov.
7, at 7:30 p.m. in Dimnent Memorial Chapel.

A five-time Grammy and three-time Latin Grammy-winning pianist, composer and bandleader,
Jesús “Chucho” Valdés is also Irakere’s founder, main composer and arranger. The 2015
Chucho Valdés: Irakere 40 tour is a celebration of Irakere, the Havana-based band
that fuses Afro-Cuban ritual music, popular Afro-Cuban music styles, jazz and rock.
Valdés has helmed Irakere for the past four decades, swapping in the finest young
Cuban musicians, making certain the band swings hard, and persevering at the vanguard
of Cuban jazz. In this appearance, Valdés offers a glimpse of his great project for
2015: revisiting and reinterpreting the music of his group, Irakere, featuring a band
of young musicians.

El Periódico has said of his work, “Valdés is the creator of a sound that is now the
lingua franca in Latin Jazz, but forty years ago … it sounded like a revolution.”

The New York Times has praised him as well, calling him “A pianist of imperial command,
possessed of a dazzling, deceptively casual virtuosity.” The New York Times also
noted, “Mr. Valdés boosted the energy, making the piano talk with great, hard, ringing
chords and single notes like rapid-fire arrow shots. The force and charisma in his
technique never really get old.”

Son of Cuban jazz pioneer Bebo Valdés, Chucho developed many of today’s Afro-Cuban
musical hallmarks: the combination of bebop with guajeo-based horn lines, the use
of the batá and other Cuban folkloric instruments, and rhythms that laid the groundwork
for timba. Chucho, speaking of his father, said, “At home he played jazz: the music
of Ellington, Count Basie and Glenn Miller’s band. I’ve been privileged. Because Bebo
was the piano player at the Tropicana I could see true legends of jazz in person.
He took me to see Nat King Cole, Errol Garner and Sarah Vaughan when I was a child
studying music. You can’t imagine the effect that had on my life! It was enormous!
Magical!”

Irakere first made its mark internationally in Finland in 1976. The following year,
the band was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie during a visit to Havana on a jazz cruise
that also included pianist Earl “Fatha” Hines and saxophonist Stan Getz. In 1978 the
producer Bruce Lundvall, then president of CBS, signed the band for the label. Irakere
debuted, unannounced, as “surprise guests,” at Carnegie Hall as part of the Newport
Jazz Festival. The program that night also featured pianists Bill Evans and McCoy
Tyner, two of Valdés’ main influences.

Tickets for the concert are $18 for regular admission, $13 for senior citizens, Hope
faculty/staff, $6 for children, and free for Hope College students, and are available
at the ticket office in the Events and Conferences Office located downtown in the
Anderson-Werkman Financial Center (100 E. Eighth St.). The office is open weekdays
from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and can be called at (616) 395-7890. Tickets are also available
online at hope.edu/tickets.

Dimnent Memorial Chapel is located at 277 College Ave., at the corner of College Avenue
and 12th Street.

Hope College Faculty and Student Collaborative Ensemble to Perform

The Hope College Faculty and Student Collaborative Ensemble will present a recital on Monday, Oct. 12, at 7:30 p.m. in the John and Dede Howard Recital Hall of the Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts.